after the publication of the present law, and in fifteen days from every other part of the republic. XVI. After the delay allowed by the preceding article, every indie vidual inscribed upon the list of emigrants, and not definitively grazed, who shall be arrested within the republic, shall be prosecuted be, fore a military committee, in order to be tried within twenty-four hours according to the 24 article of the 4th title of the law 2d Brumaire, 3d year, relative to the emi, grants. The different provisions from the 17th to the 34th are solely relative to the mode of trying and punish ing the emigrants and priests. XXXIV. The decrees of the 1st of August, and 17th of September, 1793, and 21st Prairial, third year, which authorize the banishment of the Bourbons, including the widow of Orleans, and the confiscation of their effects, shall be executed, and all contrary provisions shall be of no avail. The directory shall be authorized to determine the place of their transportation, and allow them out of their estates the necessary means of subsistence. XXXV. The journals, and other public papers, and the presses in which they are printed, are to be placed for a year under the inspection of the police, which may prohibit them in terms of the 335th article of the convention act. XXXVI. The law of 7th Thermidor last, relative to private societies discussing political subjects, is repealed. XXXVII. Every private society discussing political questions, in which principles hostile to the constitution of the 3d year, accepted by the French people, are professed, shall be shut up, and those of its members who shall have professed such principles, shall be prosecuted agreeably to the law of the 27th Germinal, fourth year. XXXVIII. The laws of the 25th Thermidor last, and 5th Fructidor, present month, relative to the esta blishment and organization of the national guard, are repealed. XXXIX. The power of putting a commune in a state of siege is restored to the directory. XL. The present resolution shall be printed, and sent to the council of elders. The list of the members ordered to be transported being afterwards read, Savary, Boullay, and Tallien, spoke highly in favour of Normand, and proposed his erazure from the list, which was accordingly done. Boullay made a similar proposition in favour of Thibaudeau. He bore witness to his attachment to liberty, and contended that in the report he lately made, he spoke the sentiments of the committee, and not his own. Lehardy moved that the council should not decide en masse upon the fate of its members, but individually, after hearing every member who might choose to speak for or against their erazure- -which was adopted. Dumont, of Calvados, and several other members, spoke in favour of Doulcet, whose name, as well as that of Thibaudeau, was ordered to be erazed; Bailly de Torcey, Tarbe, and Noguier Malguay, were also erazed. Motions in favour of Duplat and Simeon were rejected, and the name of Ramel, late commandant of the guard of the legislative body, was added to the list. The council of ancients cor. curred unanimously in the resolutions and proceedings of the council of five hundred. On the following day, on the motion of ge. neral neral Jourdan (who at this time appears to have been reconciled with the directory), the council of five hundred proceeded to the nomina tion of proper persons to succeed the directors Carnot and Barthe lemi. François de Neufchateau, Merlin, Garat, the generals Massena, Augereau, and Ernouf, Le Charlier, Charles de la Croix, Monge, and Gohier, were return ed; out of these the council of ancients made choice of François de Neufchateau as the successor of Carnot; and a similar list being afterwards presented with only the insertion of the name of Taleyrand, instead of François de Neufchateau, Merlin, the minister of justice, was chosen as the successor of Barthe lemi. Such is the outline of this extraordinary transaction, on which we shall reserve our reflections till the publication of our next volume. By one party it is extolled as the only means of saving the republic "as a great stroke applied in a great crisis, that crushed in an instant, and without the loss of a life, all the hopes of the enemy, and restored tranquillity to the interior"-while, by the opposite party it is regarded as a violation of every principle of justice, as a sacrifice to a base and tyrannical faction, and as the overthrow of the French constitution. Some documents were afterwards presented by the directory to prove the reality of the royalist conspiracy; and that general Pichegru in particular was engaged in the interest of Louis XVIII. These papers, though authenticated by the names of Buonaparte and Moreau, were, we confess, not satisfactory to us; but whatever might be the guilt of this general, or of any other who was implicated in the affair, as Englishmen or friends of liberty, we never can approve the infliction of any punishment in any case whatever, without a fair and open trial. Whatever may be the prejudices of speculative men in favour of any form of government, we will venture to assert, from the history of our own country, and from observation, that the TRIAL BY JURY is a practical improve. ment in government and jurisprudence which is worth all that speculative writers have ever produced, or modern reformers ever attempted in the science of politics. And we much doubt, whether to give up in a single instance so invaluable a privilege, to establish so bad a precedent, was not à more serious evil than any of those, with which, even taking for granted the statement of the directory them, selves, the republic was threatened. The event of the 4th of Sep; tember probably contributed to the abrupt termination of a negotiation which was at this time carrying on at Lisle with the British government for the happy and desirable purpose of restoring peace between the two nations. In the course of the month of June a proposal hav ing been made on the part of lord Grenville to the French minister for foreign affairs, for commencing a fresh negotiation, a passport was granted for a minister furnished with full powers to negotiate a definitive and separate treaty of peace, and Lisle wasappointed as the scene of the negotiation. In the begin ning of July, lord Malmesbury, the British plenipotentiary, arrived at Lisle; and, after exchanging his powers with the French plenipo tentiaries, Letourneu:*, Pleville, Pellay, and Maret, had his first con The director who went cut on the preceding 20th of May. ference ference of business on the 8th of the same month: in this conference lord Malmesbury delivered in his project as the basis of the negotiation-the leading articles of which were, that the principle of the state of possession before the war should be reciprocally adopted as the basis; and all conquests restored, unless such as should be excepted by the present treaty; and that all the conquests from the French republic by the British should be relinquished, and only Trinidad retained, as conquered from Spain; and Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope, from Holland; a restoration of the effects of the stadtholder was also claimed, or an equivalent with a compensation for the loss of his hereditary dignities. As the project of lord Malmesbury contained some particulars concerning which the French plenipotentiaries said their instructions did not fully enable them to conclude, they sent them, with their observations, to the directory; and, in the mean time, proposed to his lordship (on the 9th) to enter into some explanation concerning certain other points, the discussion of which might facilitate and hasten the important business. On his lordship assenting to this proposal, the French negotiators objected in the first place to the title of king of France, as used by his Britannic majesty, the abolition of which, they asserted, was essential to the full acknowledgment of the republic. The second subject on which they demanded satisfaction was, as his lordship justly remarks, of much greater importance; it was to ask, either a restitution of the ships taken at Toulon, or an equivalent for all which were either taken or destroyed in that port. They grounded their claim on the preliminary declarations of lord Hood on his taking possession of In this state the negotiation continued till the 16th of July, when lord Malmesbury received a note from the French plenipotentiaries, into ming him that the French government, unable to detach itself from its treaties with its allies, required as a preliminary of negotiation, the restitution of all his Britannic majesty's conquests. To this note lord Malmesbury replied, in a conference, after having received fresh instructions from his court"That he was sure peace on such terms would not be heard of."His lordship added every argument in his power to convince them of the unreasonableness of the de demand; mand; but received for answer, that the instructions from the directory on that point were precise and positive; and therefore, before they proceeded, they must wait for further orders from the French go ve: nment. A considerable delay now ensued; but on the 12th of August one of the French plenipotentiaries informed lord Malmesbury, in confidence, that the delay was occasioned by the necessity of the French government consulting with its allies; and on the 14th he was given to understand that in four or five days the French ministers would receive their final instructions. On the 28th of August, however, a fresh cause of delay occurred in the negotiation; and the French ministers then informed lord Malmes bury, that the answer from Holland was so unsatisfactory, that the directory had remitted it to the Dutch ministers at Paris, who could not take it upon themselves to alter it in the way the directory proposed, but had been obliged to refer back to their own government for new orders. While the negotiation continued in this state, the important revolu tion of the 4th of September intervened. The old plenipotentiaries were recalled from Lisle, and Treilhard and Bonner appointed in their stead. The first conference of business was held with the new plenipotentiaries on the 14th of September. The French ministers commenced with making the strongest professions of the sincere desire entertained by the directory for the return of peace; but the first and most material point, they observed, to be ascertained in every negotiation, was the extent of the powers with which the negotiators were vested; theirs, they said, would be found to be very ample; and if was necessary to the success of their discussions that those of the British ministers should be equally so. They then proceeded to inquire whether lord Malmesbury was authorized to treat on a general principle of restitution or not. To this question the British minister strongly objected; and observed, thatfrom the very nature of the inquiry, he could not allow himself to give full credit to the pacific professions of the directory, or agree to what the French minister had asserted, that it was calculated at all to facilitate the negotiation. The French plenipotentiaries, on the other hand, persisted in their assertion, that a direct answer to their question was calculated entirely to promote the success of the negotiation, that it would give it activity, and prevent it from stagnating. They observed, that it might not be necessary for him to go the full extent of his powers; but still it was necessary he should be invested with them, in order to bring the subjects immediately under dis cussion. Speed, said they, is our wish, and speed with peace for its object. After a long discussion, which it would be fruitless to detail, lord Malmesbury retired. On the 15th he received a note peremptorily asking whether his powers were sufficient to restore every possession taken from France or her allies; and, on his answering in the nega tive, he received on the following day another note requiring him to return in 24 hours, to obtain the necessary qualifications from his own court: and thus ended this unfortunate negotiation. As the subject was canvassed af some length in the British pa. ment, we forbear to anticipate the argu arguments employed on both sides on this interesting subject, which will be impartially detailed in. our succeeding volume. A negotiation equally fruitless was entered into by the French government with the court of Portugal, and a treaty was actually concluded at Paris, on the 16th of August, with the Portuguese minister, the chevalier d'Aranjo. Why the treaty was not carried into execution has never been satisfactorily explained and we have only to remark, that its rupture was generally attributed to the court of Lisbon, and was soon after followed by an almost unprecedented measure -the commitment of the chevalier d'Aranjo as a close prisoner to the Temple. In reflecting on the present politics of Europe, there is little consolotary to the friend of liberty and of mankind. The French government has departed from the grand principle on which they professed to enter into war, to indulge in visionary schemes of aggrandisement, and to acquire conquests, which, in the end, will be destructive to themselves. They forget that the nation only which is happy and at peace is truly great. They neglect the means of internal greatness, peace, and industry, to pursue a false glory which dazzles only to mislead and destroy. With respect to ourselves, we are still convinced that the return of peace ought to be the principal, the sole object with the British government; and that no colonial acquisitions can be an adequate compensation for even a single year of war. We are not of that class of politicians who are disposed to despair of our country. But our finances are deranged, and a season of tranquillity is necessary to restore them. Our commerce may not in appearance be diminished; yet, if the expenses with which it is at present burthened be taken into consideration, it can yet scarcely be said to be in a flourishing state. Our military arrangements may possibly be necessary for the security of the nation; but we are convinced that they are calculated ultimately to enervate and diminish its industry, which is the sole advantage Britain possesses over other European nations, its guardian, its support. |